Republicans jump ship as Trump's anchor weighs heavy on party - USA Today
WASHINGTON — Republican candidates facing increasingly dire prospects in the midterm election are starting to stiff-arm their unpopular standard-bearer, breaking with President Donald Trump as he threatens to drag down the party.
In Florida, Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for governor Byron Donalds wiped prominent mentions of the president from his website and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is criticizing the administration’s aggressive deportation push.
In two key Senate races, Republican candidates Ashley Hinson in Iowa and Mike Rogers in Michigan are calling for an end to the Iran war. And in historically Republican Kansas, Sen. Roger Marshall is raising concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the state.
The growing GOP angst around running on Trump’s record comes as polls show most voters disapprove of the president and many of his core policies, including the U.S. war in Iran, sweeping tariffs on imports, and his hardline immigration crackdown.
Republican candidates have fallen behind Democrats in several key races that will decide control of Congress. Trump’s approval rating ‒ which sunk to a historic low of 32% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week ‒ is weighing on GOP candidates, who often are closely tied to the president and now face an electorate that takes a dim view of his performance.
“You’ve got to show that you’re different,” Republican pollster and Cygnal founder Brent Buchanan said of GOP candidates appealing to Trump voters who have soured on the president.
The Iran war and its economic fallout, particularly high gas prices, have put Republican congressional candidates in an especially difficult position as they navigate their allegiance to the president and voter dissatisfaction.
Trump has further complicated Republicans' midterm efforts by pushing controversial data centers that power artificial intelligence despite a nationwide backlash against the sprawling facilities, and angering ranchers in heavily Republican western states by working to expand imports of foreign beef to lower prices of the grocery staple.
Republican leaders have largely stood behind Trump as he pursed his aggressive second term agenda, offering little resistance in Congress or on the campaign trail. That wall of support is starting to crack amid signs that a potential blue wave is building, powered by opposition to Trump.
Yet GOP candidates could have a hard time distancing themselves from the president, who has been eager to make the election a referendum on his leadership, urging voters to "pretend" he’s on the ballot and pledging to be front and center on the campaign trail.
"This is way too little, way too late," said David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron, arguing Republicans were "all for" making the midterms a referendum on Trump before his unpopularity in polls became clear. "These Republican candidates and elected officials are superglued to Trump, whether they want to be or not."
Taking the stage at the first-ever Republican midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month, Trump sought to rally his party around him ahead of the election. "On Nov. 3, the great American majority is going to stand up and continue to make America great again," Trump said.
Trump promised voters dividend checks of $5,000 if Republicans retain control of Congress, a proposal that was met with immediate skepticism among core MAGA allies and accusations of bribery from Democrats. He had supporters raise their hands, pledge their allegiance to him and promise to vote.
The event – dubbed "Trumpapalooza" by the Republican National Committee chair - was meant to project party unity and boost GOP voter enthusiasm, but even as Trump spoke there were signs within the arena of his party’s struggles.
Many seats were empty and some battleground candidates opted to skip the event.
Among them was Hinson, an Iowa Republican congresswoman who is trailing Democrat Josh Turek in Iowa's Senate race despite Trump carrying the state by double digits in 2024.
Hinson kept her distance in Dallas, attending a campaign fundraiser but not stepping foot on the convention stage where Trump gave primetime speeches both nights. She put more daylight between herself and the president this week when she called far an “immediate end” to the Iran war. She isn't the only GOP lawmaker speaking out on the war as Election Day nears.
Earlier this month, two other Iowa Republicans locked in tight races, Rep. Zach Nunn and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, backed a measure aimed at ending military operations in Iran.
Rogers, a former GOP congressman from Michigan and the state's Republican nominee for Senate, released an ad this week saying “the war with Iran needs to end, and end quickly.” Sen. John Husted, R-Ohio, made similar comments, as did Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany, the state's GOP candidate for governor.
"The president has final say in regards to this, but I just believe that we should be exiting Iran, that it's time to move on . . . time to come home, take care of business here in America," Tiffany said.
Tiffany and Hinson both voted repeatedly in Congress against directing Trump to stop the war, and Rogers has previously supported the president's efforts in Iran. The spike in fuel prices caused by the conflict has hit midwestern farm states particularly hard, though, and candidates there have been leading the rising GOP chorus to end the conflict.
With diesel prices at a record high and farmers feeling the pinch, Hinson, Rogers, Miller-Meeks and Alaska GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan all called this week for an embargo on selling the fuel abroad. Sullivan also skipped the convention as he faces a tough reelection campaign.
Buchanan said Republican candidates are struggling to win over Trump voters who are unhappy with the president's performance. His polling shows 12% of those who cast a ballot for the president are now wavering on voting for a Republican congressional candidate.
"That's why you're seeing these candidates break with Trump," said Buchanan, adding: "They've got to show that independent streak in order to pull as many of those 12% of voters back to them."
There are some signs Trump is starting to lose his grip on the Republican electorate.
A majority of Republican voters, 56%, in a poll from the opinion research firm Echelon Insights conducted last week said they consider themselves to be primarily a supporter of the Republican Party rather than a supporter of Trump. That compares to 59% who said they were more a supporter of Trump than the party when he took office for a second term in January 2025.
Yet Trump remains popular with his loyal MAGA base, creating a tough balancing act for GOP candidates. Hinson and Rogers didn't call out Trump directly in their statements, which don't mention the president.
"Republican candidates are in an extremely difficult position," said Nathan Gonzales, who runs the nonpartisan election handicapping firm Inside Elections. "If they try to distinguish themselves from President Trump in an effort to appeal to independent voters, they risk angering or alienating Republican voters who they also need to win."
In response to some Republicans breaking from Trump, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the president remains the "unequivocal leader" and best messenger for Republicans.
"The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning, commonsense agenda or the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction," Ingle said.
Trump's approval rating has dropped amid the war ‒ which he said would last a few weeks and is now nearing the seven-month mark ‒ and high gas prices triggered by the conflict.
Just 39% of voters approve of the president's performance in the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, down from 43% at the start of the war and 50% when he took office last year.
Democrats are widely favored to win control of the House of Representatives, and they're becoming increasingly bullish about their chances to take the Senate.
Democrats need a net gain of four seats to erase Republican 53-47 seat advantage take control of the Senate, a bar that seemed improbable a year ago. But the backlash to Trump has helped Democrats go on offense in red states, expanding the map of battleground contests to include Senate races in Alaska, Texas, Ohio and Iowa, all of which Trump carried by double digits. Republicans trail in all nine of the most closely contested Senate battlegrounds.
Steve Deace, a popular conservative radio show host from Iowa, in an X post this week relayed his alarm about Republican polling that show Iowa congressional districts Trump won in 2024 by 15 percentage points are now "within the margin of error" in the midterms. He said Republicans in districts Trump won by 10 percentage points are running "underwater."
"If the environment is this bad in my home state, where Trump has been the most popular political figure over the last decade, I can’t imagine where it is everywhere else," Deace said, comparing the war in Iran to a "2020 Covid lockdown level of political albatross."
With Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff leading in Georgia, Republicans turned to Michigan as perhaps their best chance to flip a Democratic-held Senate seat after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination. Trump and Republicans have worked to make El-Sayed ‒ who is aligned politically with Bernie Sanders and would be the first Muslim elected to the Senate ‒ the face of Democrats nationally.
But a poll this week from Suffolk University found El-Sayed leading Rogers 47%-40% among likely Michigan voters. In another troubling sign for the Republican nominee, 48% of voters surveyed said they were casting their ballot "to change the direction President Trump is leading the nation," while only 20% said they were voting to support Trump.
Even in Florida and Kansas, red states where the GOP seemed firmly in control at the start of the midterm cycle, there are signs that Republicans are increasingly uncomfortable being tied to the president.
Florida has trended strongly to the right since its days as the nation's largest swing state, but not to the degree that Republicans can take the state for granted, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.
"Florida Republican candidates realize this and thus in some cases are beginning to downplay their association with Trump or in some cases even criticize some of his policies," Jewett said.
Donalds, the Republican candidate for governor in Florida, attracted attention this week after his campaign website was overhauled to downplay his Trump endorsement, which had been prominently featured but was relegated to an endorsements section. Most references to Trump were erased from the website. After the changes drew media coverage, Donalds said on social media that he was "proud" to be endorsed by Trump.
Trump won Florida by 13 percentage points in 2024, thanks in part to his strength with Hispanic voters, but the president's approval rating with Hispanics has plummeted amid backlash to his immigration policies.
Salazar, a three-term congresswoman from Miami, said in an ad released this month that Trump's deportation push had gone "too far" and Hispanic voters who helped him win the White House "feel betrayed.” Salazar is locked in a tight race in a heavily-Hispanic district in the Miami area.
Marshall, who is running for reelection against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also questioned Trump's immigration enforcement efforts in a social media post this week.
Marshall said ICE "needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement." His comments came amid increased ICE operations in a state where one recent poll showed Hamilton ahead. Trump carried Kansas by 16 percentage points in the 2024 election.
Trump has said he plans to launch a campaign travel blitz to battleground districts and states in the final weeks before the election to boost Republicans in the 35 races he said will decide control of the House and Senate.
Trump's only campaign stop since the midterm convention has been North Carolina, where polling suggests Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley's race against Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper could be moving out of reach for the GOP.
Five weeks from the election, Trump spent Saturday, Sept. 26 in Knoxville, Tennessee ‒ a safe Republican state ‒ where he attended the Tennessee-Texas college football game. He's also planning campaign stops next week in ruby-red Alabama and Oklahoma, both far from ground zero of the midterms.
Politico reported the president will campaign in Alaska, Iowa, Texas and Florida ahead of the election as he seeks to bolster red-state GOP candidates, though none of these trips have been formally announced.
Cohen said many voters in swing states have "drawn a direct line" between high gas prices, their anxieties about the economy and Trump's decision to wage war on Iran, predicting it's likely to result in major Democratic gains in the midterms.
"I think we're looking at a blue tsunami," Cohen said. "I think 'wave' really doesn't capture the sentiment out there in the heartland. People are angry. And they understand that there's one person to blame."
